Okay, so I started listening to movie soundtracks, as I love to do, and I finally think I had a bit of a breakthrough, where I just went, okay, “what genre is this?” Just because, it’s a psychological temps, it’s a psychological genre, and of course there’s drama there, so I ended up going on a different skate, as it’s a particular way of reacting to a totally insane situation. Let me study it. Let me understand it. Bring it closer. I was angry. And I was in the throes, like, it was the sort of story that you’d expect would spawn a career. There was a career in it, if you will, I was a psychologist, it opened an angle onto the world that seized me by the heart, absolutely, at least, it was positive. I don’t know, I couldn’t look away, I was too heartbroken. Who was this person? What happened to her? It was downright frightening. I once joked, like, uh, did you grow up in a family of serial killers?
So now, I feel like I’m in the right frame of mind, because I understand what the genre is. I wanted to share my learning, keep track of it, as contending with the genre helped me approach it better. So notecards—everywhere. Everywhere. A mastermind at work, I’m laughing, a funny one, listening to movie soundracks. Dr J. Was this incest Dr. J? Right? Were you abused in your home? By your family? I felt that this present situation reflected the past, as the only thing my father knew about my mother was that, she was shipped away to different family members for the first ten years of her life because, beginning when she was two, her sister beat her. I couldn’t help but remark that I had just been sent away for a few years. Was that a glimmer, I sometimes would be struck by a detail, like that, like it hit me, was that real? Dr. J? Because I just got sent away, did this reflect some traumatic event? Did this happen to her? I just needed to think genre, so in the future, I might think about that ahead of time, to make the storyboarding easier…
Because, yeah, now I see how the story idea can hold the whole story, even the revelation that this might not have been a lie? In the end. I have to get into all the emotions that were driving this, wanting to destroy her, literally. I wanted to destroy her, if this was not true, if she did this for shits? Destroy.
She thought she was the biggest genius in the universe, truly speaking. A prodigy, Dr. J, apparently. And luckily I have an ally on the other side and also out there, even in theory— Amal Clooney, please, are you reading this? Dr. J thought she was the biggest genius in the world! And she’s acting like this, and I fell for it, and so did everyone else. The genius routine, wow, that one strikes people, immediately, like she’s a troubled genius? No, this is just insane. And the thing is, this woman stood not a chance against psychology. Nice try. “Welcome to reality,” that’s the topic. “That’s basically what psychology is—reality.” I see you, in other words, Dr. J. I am here, and you are here, and what are you doing? Did she know what she was doing? I don’t give a damn. She better. She was a woman who’d make you believe it true, a woman who would be a man’s accomplice, of sorts, sure, someone who might even… be a threat to a child in this way? Angelica didn’t know, she didn’t know how my mother handled me, you see. I’m sorry?
When I heard that, I mean, I started waking up through this, you understand, when I reopened these years in my 30s, I was not expecting to come to the realizations that I did — in a total death match. Arendt, my only friend. I got shut down by everyone every step of the way… but I can’t help what I’m going through physically around this, yes, like please, this is in my body. I am going to need to see a specialist. “Yes you came to the right place…” and how can you not laugh? A sexual trauma specialist. “You came to the right place…” as all my friends just try to take me down harder, even by being NICE, like, what the fuck is happening? Please! I had to reach out to the “celebrities!” I cried for Will Ferrell. “Please! Tell these friends of mine to shut the fuck up!”
Imagine? I already came from this story… and the second I open my mouth, they will only try to kill me. Bring me down, the whole concept. Joy. The most shattered human being on Earth. And yet, every step I took, down, they took me, I took me, what was the difference in this case?
Did you say that you don’t know how my mother handled me? Sexually? I mean, I was nine, I could not process that, impossible. I was just stunned, huh, again, I was so young. I might have been sophisticated but I was young. I wasn’t going to understand, at least I knew that, I wasn’t going to understand everything that I was hearing, but I would try to simply take it in, at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club.
It was founded in 1929, the year the world ended, and there would be a year where I ended. My life ended, when I reopened these years. Charlie Chaplin and Johnny Carson were both members of this club, and I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve, so imagine what this “undercover investigation” of mine, me doing this, for real, at my age, studying the sex scandal I was in—at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, fundamentally not getting the full picture. I was young, awareness changes. It was a comedic premise.
I’m going to go back to the drawing board. I’m going to organize what I’ve done, but it’s a better direction. And that’s just by thinking genre. It’s like Joaquin Phoenix said… I had seen his picture on the cover of a magazine, I don’t even know how this got here, in my house, it was random. But I am a fan of his acting, and I was starting to think about film, or writing in the dramatic direction, and he showed up, and I don’t read magazines. I do not engage in celebrity culture at all…it’s like this very bright glittering ball that I kept away from me. Joy. Flashes. The mirror. Fame. A drug. I opened the magazine, like I didn’t want to take anything in, and I don’t really my understand my routine here, to be frank, but I was not seeking to engage at all. I just needed to know, flashes glances down the text, just bouncing off it, searching for the word, because I thought he might be the type of person who would suggest or mention a film, and I thought, I bet he would have a great suggestion of where to start. So I needed to know WHERE, just the tiniest bit of context. Phoenix eating sushi in Japanese restauant in Silverlake. Uh huh. Next. He said, “these people tried to sell me this film as a heist film, and I said,” and I imagined the way he said it, “there’s hardly any action in it.” And I got the feeling in it. You cannot sell Phoenix a heist movie, like do not say that to him, unless you know what the genre is. He’s not going to take you seriously, basically. I thought, check, okay. And then he said, “the types the movies I like are heartbreaking and hilarious…” and I thought, okay, I think I could do that. “Like Dog Day Afternoon,” so that’s all I wanted from this brief exchange. A movie to watch. And I loved it. An ensemble piece.
So I’ll just always think genre, first, and again, you know, I don’t get the screenwriter, literally, supposedly “taking an interest in me?” Like are you joking? “Download the book from a future point?” Like, what I’m doing now, makes sense, and it makes too much sense to understand, really, why he spoke to me as if we existed in a SETH book? It was utterly deranged. Just spend some time with notecards, (I’m laughing), and think genre, shit like that, and figure out what the story is… did I have to meditate? Channel? These were “channelers….” they might not “get it,” I don’t know you see, it got a little scary, as this story brought me… complications.
This screenwriter, this guy. This guy I want to bring down most certainly. That was, what exactly? Indirectly suggesting, or taking me down this thought road, like I wasn’t fed or something, as a baby? A child? I’m sorry? Based on what? His FEELING? He didn’t say it directly though… I think, these sorts of relationships — and I say this seeking to destroy them, it’s how plays on your mind. It’s not real. They have no powers… he behaved as if he had psychic senses, superior. Bullshit. That guy just projected all over me, like destroy her… it was as if this man wanted to destroy me…
When I was back in Paris, I was camping out with the Russians. A Russian underground family suddenly came into my life as Putin invaded the Ukraine, it happened just like that. They slithered into my life, popping up in a restaurant I was working in at the time in Paris, Italian. In a booth, the Russian panther, I call her, the lithe and lethal Sonya. She looks like a panther. It was so Master and Margarita but inversed, there was a magical weave running through the air that night. Even she felt it. I had just cried, thinking I was alone in the restaurant, “I have to sublet my apartment!!”
I had stability problems. And when you come out of these maladaptive situations, unfortunately for me, they exist out there… right now, the place I’m in right now, I’m OUT. The world feels different, I am able to meet, I hope, another world, one that’s going to embrace me… encourage me to realize myself, but these mechanisms, how we function, turn us in directions out there in the vast world…. not so unlike mine… and there are people who do not believe that your world is possible, which is ridiculous, and yet, people lie. But about WHAT? Why did these people not believe me?
Because of my attitude? My personality? Yes, I thought about Dr. J, because I ALREADY came out of this situation, for real. And when have you ever, seriously speaking, met someone like me. Be real. All these people, be real. Ridiculous. I cannot help that I came from a drama. A mess. I wouldn’t call it a problem, I think in my case, I was right, I couldn’t be affected by this, I don’t know, this was insane, and yet, could I not be affected by this? Did this have to affect me? It did. But I sort of refused, and the world didn’t like that, and the requirement was anger, rage, meaning, I had to blast through the world, really, annoyed by these responses. There’s a time and place for “understanding her,” but what she did was outrageous, unacceptable, and there’s value in saying that. Generally, there are acts that are committed that you gotta care about, that’s law. What did she was unlawful, immoral, as this weird criminal, insanely loose poof power shark woman, a real case.
Again, someone, you’d think, I guess if you were to going to do such a thing to your own daughter, you’d really have to be a cruel creature, you understand. She was fundamentally cruel, a villain, and people wrestled with this one, as I spoke to many over the years, tried to, about this, as if there’s no such thing. And that brings a smile to my face, my mother was a Joker.
That’s funny. Yes, there is. If you would like to tackle the subject as metaphor, yes, there is. In a literary context. She was a legend. She didn’t sound real, I know, but she was real, very real Joy. I have real questions, what happened, and I’m on the journey I am on, and I just got here, as a person. My father was vague… now this one, this one pisses me deeply, because that guy, what the hell was he doing? I tell Amal Clooney the guy calls her house like an idiot, acting like he doesn’t know I don’t live there anymore… which she expected. Her smile. She played the “nice game,” with him, really really lathered that on. Like, okay, we’re pretending, is that right?
What was this game, Dr. J?
She didn’t mention me, but neither did he… he just went on and on about his vacation plans as she paced the kitchen egging me on, needing him to continue, you see, everything was “nice, amazing, oh really?” Her sneaks sought his balls. Her legs, fantastic, it made her funnier. She suddenly squat, real low, a dancer by breathing, she stuck her finger in her mouth. Yuck. She dropped the mask at me. I did not laugh. I was hanging back. But it was funny, but I was already slightly more sophisticated than that. I was regarding this, this bizarre scene that was too memorable… finally, she stomped forward, she performed you understand. “What, I’m sorry?” She was the most sincere woman on earth. She didn’t hear him… she needed to. “Who?” Who? Who was he searching for… “Maria?!” She was shocked, she apologized, but really, oh my god, her manners, of course, she laughed…”Is she here?” She really reflected that question back at me. “Well,” oh my God, she stepped forward, in her tennis outfit, “she’s right here…” laughing, oh my God, she couldn’t have apologized more profusely, but really. She drew the line of sight, between her and the babies. She keeps them right where she can see them. Doesn’t leave her sight, she promised, she assured him. “She’s safe,” that was the button word. “Can you what?” Talk to her?
Have you ever woken up from a Dream? I couldn’t watch Inception, when I watched that movie, I had to walk away. I’m sorry? What is even happening. Why is my father acting like this? Wait, coming out of a dream, blinking… shush, she said shush back in her room, and this line of thought kept disappearing, like, wait, I’d have to freeze wait, you didn’t know. So why are you acting like this? Shush, she said in her room, I was four, you know. “We’re not going to tell him what we know…” we were going to play a nice game with him… he didn’t know. So why, why is he calling her house like this? Why isn’t he just picking me up? How many phone calls came through? I only remember one…
Adults wouldn’t necessarily tell me the truth. They might not even be able to see the truth, because they might not want to… even if it kills me. I only remember one. He requested to visit, I mean, um what? Wait what? He requested to visit? Why? So there’s an unstated conversation happening between them, and where are we? She told us, her youngest daughter and I that we were going to be putting on a nice show, chewing her gum now, the bull, a coach with a vision. “Big show.” Our target — picturing her youngest daughter Nicole and I, side by side, 4 and 6, 7 looking up at her — was the door. We’ve never been happier. We had to play like mad, the house was ours. Not one look at that door, not one, doesn’t exist. Now cry at the top of your lungs. Nicole and I unleashed our voices. “Laugh, jump, scream louder…” A thrill, a shrill. Knock knock — hit it girls. Go nuts. Nicole and I took off in slow motion towards the living room… throw pillows, across the foyer. We went screaming through the house, playing… in a forced jubilee. “Louder, faker, we have the stars to reach…” and she milked this, you understand. As she said, “this BITCH told me RAPE,” like, are you HEARING that? Was she supposed to act WELL?
She cracked the front door open, just a crack. Her face, the stork, she looked like a bird, appeared — you see, the stork that snatched a baby back, that’s what she looked like—Brazilian. She was even touched. She pulled the door open too, and I watch these moments like a true spectator now, like is that, is that what’s really happening? She’s pulling the door, in no rush, to the wall — she opened her front door wide open gladly… for this child molester. Nothing to hide here. You understand? We can play “this isn’t really happening routine,” and she could do it better than you. And truly speaking, she just stood guard at this door, and he watched us run wild from the shadows of the porch, horror. And when the show was done, she’d begin closing the door, in no rush, again. She thanked him profusely to stopping by, thank you, she couldn’t have been more grateful for “the memories we have made….” and she slammed the door in his face, nicely. He didn’t do anything, he obeyed.
Now, when I really thought about it, I couldn’t explain this, and no wonder she believed it was true, he pulled a totally deranged move, where he seemingly showed himself. I follow her logic. So these spectacles happened more than once. I interrogated him, also, in his car, the Cutlass Supreme, and he said that he didn’t pick me up, as I had the thought to ask that, at least. Why didn’t he just pick me up? This wasn’t hard. He said, “you hated me and I didn’t know why,” emphasis on the why, but think about the scene… but by eight, nine, these spectacles hadn’t disappeared, I just didn’t know what to do with them… particularly because this situation is going to spin out of control…. speaking of the skirts.
The lambada parties. It was about sex, as the lambada is the closest thing you can do to sex with your clothes on, but in this living room, it became, even, good. What brought everyone into this world… the fertility goddess, pop star, mother of six Jewish sportsstars, essentially, a talented mover, a woman who lived in a state of song and dance… a firecracker, divine, a woman with a whip, for real, a wild temptestuous caring hilarious woman, hilarious. No one funnier than her — the stork, bull, with fantastic legs… snapping at her children, fundamentally annoyed. Cracking jokes constantly, and they could slap you in the face, she could slap you, most definitely, with delivery of the words. I laughed at her, I truly did. She was one of the funniest woman I had ever met…
She’s going to decide it isn’t true about my father, um, based on nothing. And that, just to arrive at these lines… the ones I’m writing here… my world almost killed me. She decided based on nothing, absolutely nothing, that it wasn’t true about my father, because? I was four. And here, I’m lost, totally lost, thinking about the line my mother cracked on, “Was it true, not true?” You see? I sliced down the middle of those two ideas, eliminated all those who shot me down before I could arrive at my own conclusion… though they had no idea what the story was, they just thought they did, based on nothing, you see, nothing, nothing nothing. They knew nothing, and yet the insisted that they did, it was always the same with humans… this kind… you don’t KNOW.
It hurt too much to maintain a face.
But the thing is, I wasn’t going down for this, not a chance. It was my whole world, what can I say? And that included almost everyone in it, luckily I do have real friends out there… it just took a minute to figure out who they were… forget them, I didn’t know them well enough, you understand, but I had to spill out to these people from time to time, like, I don’t understand my friends… I was in a sex scandal when I was four…and I understand that’s a shocking statement, I walked down the street, telling her this, turning, like I can’t believe it myself. But that’s the “short cut” you understand, not “my mother gave me away to a total stranger when I was four because she lied that my father was a chld molester…” and like, I even said to one of my friends, you’re not my close friend, we haven’t seen each other in a while, we were friends, but not like that, so I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t want this to come into my new life… I just don’t understand them.
I already come out of this story, a Black woman, and this made me laugh, just her face, “did you say her name was Dr. J?” She took that one in. “Do you hear the villain in it?”
“Yeah…” she wasn’t that rocked over though, if you will, like she was fine, okay so you came from a crazy story, yeah, and I was wrestling with it for real that day… I couldn’t quite get to our date on time, I was exhausted, totally broke, I just came out of an extremely dark time… and my friends, they broke my heart. Everyone in my life did. I thought, there has to be better than this, like, what to say about the choices that you were making that you didn’t know that you were making… my whole life came to light… and who I was, that wasn’t exactly me, I disappeared somewhere back there… and no one heard me. That’s all I know really, I am here. Just to be here, in the quiet, my mind, nothing but opponents, speaking of the game…. I was hit, by everyone I know. Though I already come from that story… it didn’t change, I used to say, she lied, and then, I came to understand what happened, and NOW, I don’t know. And the fact that I had to fight — through idiots — over this! Blew my mind. What did you want me to die or something?
I had to reach out onto the psychospiritual and imagine telling people out there all this… like Obama, someone like this… can you imagine? I always walked a perculier line, it was true, not true, at the same time, it was the same line I had to walk, because I wasn’t even assisted, any step of the way, “like okay, maybe it did…” and I don’t know what to say…I can’t…. navigate this territory… but I came from that… that’s a true story… and someone told me, I might not have known, that I could have blocked this out, and I don’t know what to say… about “reliving these experiences” either, like is that true? Where’s the literature on all this?
So I’ll leave it at that today, but I’m in a much better flow, and luckily I have a much more grounded approach, like I needed to meet this guy — this screenwriter, I’m telling you. I was blown away by this guy, blown away every step of the way, because I came to wake up to the WHOLE thing, really, like “why am I doing that? Why am I here? Acting like a nonsensical MESS? Stop.” What the hell is this? I had to become a mother, like what the hell am I doing? I hated everyone, almost, in my life… especially these older men, whatever, just please. To me, personally, and look, I can’t help where I came from, but wake up, I was smarter than this, on all accounts. I would have to give myself some room actually, to go for a fucking walk, like what the fuck happened? I wasn’t there. I don’t know, and I had a hard time, as if I had had a tough kid, and it was understandable, but this person put me through a lot, basically. I thought about these moments, ones I didn’t have, when a kid upset their parents, when they did something “wrong,” or they were acting nonsensically here… and that’s really what I needed, someone who cared. “You’re not going to ACT like this,” and I couldn’t even begin with the PEOPLE that encouraged this… and this is where Dave Chappelle appears to back me up. Just please. I’m sorry you had to go through this madness, but it was madness, and now I have no money, I am 39. I have to start over, at this age, finally in the driver’s seat… and yeah, I was angry, because you have to care, and I had to, I had to care…because no one did. This idiot told me that family was a psychological device, which says a lot about him, when they care… that’s the basic idea.
I went through chaos, like there was a younger self within me crying in hell, why did I do…anything that I did? Lots of reasons. I made your decisions. All I can do now is move forward. I wrestled with myself, it was a terrible battle, a strongwilled battle, and I tossed and turned. I felt as though I had to become a parent, like I met many a wiseman, eh? I made my decisions, even unconsciously. To get involved in the FIRST PLACE. It was a a step one issue. Why are you HERE TO BEGIN WITH? No, this was false. False wisdom…all these people, across the board. I became psychic? What? Imagine a mother taking that in…”did you say shaman?” Like this shaman told me I could “do this work…” like it was crazy, why am I here? This is not my world. How did I even end up this person? I had to wrestle with the real delusion that exists in the very real world in relation to that story, that wanted to bring me down… and I was SAYING that I didn’t know if that was a lie anymore— I almost lost my mind. Did you not hear what I said? And I came from this story already— like it couldn’t have been BRIGHTER, more OBVIOUS, you see. Could it really be that crazy? Assholes, it’s crazy.
I keep telling myself, this will work out, this was been a bigger ordeal, given the weird detour I had to make back there, where I met a crazy screenwriter, Hollywood, how? Just the sheer hilarity of it. No no no… not a chance… if I had been the daughter of someone you KNEW, you would have never have treated me that way. Never. That was not a respectful relationship. Absurd. So I’m going to have some food, and keep working on the story… and I’m glad that thinking about genre, first, so I could think formally, globally, what this genre is, it should help me steer… Like the club is good, focusing on that location, the game… it’s a good environment, I just needed to chip away at these blocks, like my thinking was blocky.